8 comments:

You can let your students know that they have something in common with American wildland firefighters (out on the line, they have no choice but to pee on (or behind (lot of female wildland firefighters)) a tree (or (for the males) right on the fire (not recommended for females)). In camp, one of the more annoying jobs of the camp manager is finding and shutting down unauthorised pee zones. I've been in fire camps with 2,000 people, so it can be a major problem.

Dissection makes people hungry. Fact.

Not in my high school advanced bio class. Our teacher kept bringing in roadkill for dissection an necropsy.

I had never seen Mounds before! But Bounty bars come in milk and dark chocolate flavours, and the milk chocolate is the best! Crucially, Bounties are also not made by Hershey, so they lack that awful plasticky aftertaste.

Zach, wait until you see one of my upcoming Wordless Wednesdays!

Billy, fortunately for us, we were positively encouraged to contribute to the nitrogen cycle of the nature reserve, as long as we didn't all choose the same spot. The nature reserve was big enough that most groups were at least two minutes' walk from each other, so they were able to spread the urine far and wide!

I'm not sure that pro-choice advocates calling pro-lifers by the name "anti-choice" is going to advance the debate much more than it would if pro-lifers caller pro-choicers by the name "anti-lifers". Surely it's better to characterise both groups by what they are for rather then by the opposite of what the other group is for?

Sure, if this were a reproductive rights blog seeking to engage in a rational debate about the pros and cons of abortion, morally, politically and legally. However, this is my personal blog stating my personal opinions and this is my personal characterisation of people who believe that I should not have the right to consent to or to refuse to consent to medical procedures; people who would present the only "choice" in reproductive rights as carrying a foetus through to full term. Given that they are fully opposed to women having autonomy over their own bodies, autonomy over their own medical procedures, autonomy over their own reproductive cycles and who actively campaign to remove all choice bar one, then my characterisation is aposite.

Beside which, pro-choicers have been called "anti-life" for years.

I have yet to meet anyone who is pro-choice who is not also pro-life - ALL life. The fact that in 2008 in the US (and I fully expect similar data for the UK, however ONS do not seem to have a breakdown of this) the death rate for women undergoing an abortion is 0.6 per 100,000 women compared to a death rate of women in pregnancy and childbirth of 7.1 per 100,000 women (Guttmacher Institute, 2008) shows me that in no way can the anti-choice movement be referred to as "pro-life", since they openly advocate the deaths of many more women.

Pro-choice people are pro-contraception, pro-homebirth, pro-abortion, pro-VBAC, pro-adoption, pro-pregnancy, pro-sex, and far more pro-life than any anti-choicer will ever be.

Now, Mike, given that you only ever comment on my blog when you want to tell me that I'm wrong, or that I'm offensive, or that you disagree, I suggest you stop and really consider whether this is the sort of blog you want to keep on reading. And when you've done that, be bloody grateful that you will never, ever have to make these sorts of decisions.